Differentiating work from duration

[Brian]

We have a task that will take 3 days to complete (we need to wait to hear back from co-wrokers) but the task itself takes only about an hour with only 1 resource (that will never change). How would you set up the task type (fxed unit, fixed work, fixed duration) so that we could show that only 1 hour of actual work was done but we needed 3 days to finish the task.

 

[Rob Schneider]

It could be:

Duration: 1 hour
Work: 1 hour
Resource Assignment: 1 person (100% Unit) for 1 hr of work
Effort Driven: No
2.875 (2 days 7 of 8 hours) lag to next task

or your can spread the 1 hour of work across more hours by using less
"units" of resource, e.g. .5 would be 2 hour, .2 would be 5 hours, etc.
This affects the lag.

or you could put in a task to cover the wait time (although I guess I
like the lag on successor better).

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[John Beamish]

This is a task with 1hr duration, 1hr work and a 3d lag from the preceding
task.

JLB, PMP

We have a task that will take 3 days to complete (we need to wait to hear

back from co-wrokers) but the task itself takes only about an hour with only
1 resource (that will never change). How would you set up the task type
(fxed unit, fixed work, fixed duration) so that we could show that only 1
hour of actual work was done but we needed 3 days to finish the task.

 

[Simon]

Remembering that you can fix two of any three project variables, so you could have a fixed duration task and input duration (3 days) Work (1 hour) and let project solve for units.

 

[Sarah]

Or it's a Fixed Duration task with a duration of 3 days, and one
resource with one hour...

Sarah

 

[John Beamish]

"Waiting" is not a task (there's no deliverable). "Waiting" is a lag.

Furthermore, in your task definition, the Actual Work could be done as 30
minutes initially, wait 2 days, 7 hours and then do 30 more minutes of
Actual Work.

JLB, PMP

 

[Sarah]

John,

In the original posting, it sounds to me like they need a Fixed
Duration task. They have a task that uses one hour of work, but "we
needed 3 days to finish the task". They are receiving responses from
other resources. These responses are not going to all come in within a
one-hour block. The resources can respond any time within the three
days. That is why I suggested a Fixed Duration task of 3 days, with
one hour of work.

Sarah

 

[Steve House]

I'm with John here. The task duration should reflect the time over
which work will take place. People aren't working when they're waiting.
One hour of work over a 3 day duration implies they ARE working, albeit
very very slowly so in 3 days time they only get on man-hour of work
accomplished. In reality, while waiting on day 2 or day 3 they're
really doing nothing and can thus do something else. I grant you the
numbers are so small that in this case it doesn't really matter, but
consider this slightly different situation - I have 1 day's work, not
just 1 hour, and the same 3 days for the responses to come in. Showing
it fixed duration of 3 days with 8 hours work means the resource doing
the task is allocated 2 2/3 hours per day and leaving him free for other
things 5 1/3 hours each day. But that's not an accurate reflection of
what he is doing at all - in fact, he's not available for anything else
at all on Day 1 and is totally free on Day's 2 & 3, creating a totally
different resource allocation picture and possibly affecting resource
leveling signifigantly.

The example I use in my classes is preparing a customer satisfaction
survey - printing the survey form is a task, stuffing the envelopes is a
task, taking it to post office is a task, but waiting 2 weeks for enough
responses to come back to begin data analysis is a lag time.

1: Write survey, 2d
2: Print survey, 1d, 1FS
3: Stuff envelopes, 1d, 2FS
4: Deliver to PO, 1h, 3FS
5: Sufficient responses returned, 0d, 4FS+2W
6: Analyse responses, 2d, 5FS

If enough answers are back in a week or if the response in the 3 day
task comes back earlier, just updating the milestone with an actual
complete will pull the subsequent tasks forward. Tasks are actions
requiring effort by resources - waiting time, vacation time, days off,
etc are by definition non-actions and thus should not be represented as
tasks.